Working in team is a key factor in modern organizations. For this purpose, several possibilities are available to implement collaborative working sessions among multiple participants. A typical example is a meeting, wherein the participants meet in a meeting room to discuss a topic of common interest. More sophisticated solutions also allow obtaining the same result without having the participants to meet physically (thereby cutting travel costs). For example, this is possible with a conference call, wherein each participant can speak over the telephone so as to be heard by all the other participants; for this purpose, the participants dial a special service number (of a service provider that implements the conference call by linking the different telephone lines of the participants). Moreover, the dramatic development of modern telecommunication networks also makes it possible to share multimedia contents remotely among the participants. For example, in a teleconference the participants (in addition to speak over the telephone) can exchange images and videos to support the discussion. The teleconference may also be implemented entirely over the Internet (being referred to as web-conference in this case).
A problem of all the working sessions is their organization. Indeed, for this purpose a coordinator of a new working session at first has to verify the availability of the participants (or at least the ones whose attendance to the working session is mandatory). Afterwards, it is necessary to book the resources that are required to hold the working session (i.e., the meeting room or the service provider). Some tools are available to facilitate the task of the coordinator; for example, these tools allow verifying an agenda of the participants (indicating their engagements already taken), to send them invitations for the working session, to verify a calendar of the required resources (indicating their bookings), and so on.
However, when the working session is actually held, it is very difficult to meet its start and/or its end as originally scheduled.
Indeed, very often the working session ends late (for example, because the working session started after and/or it lasted more than it was scheduled). In this case, the participants to a following working session (requiring the same resources) experience a corresponding waiting time. Indeed, the participants to this working session are expected to arrive at the meeting room or to call the service number at the scheduled start of the meeting; therefore, they have to wait outside the meeting room or to continue dialing the service number, respectively. Moreover, this may cause awkward situations when the working session still in progress is interrupted by a participant to the following working session (who enters the meeting room or dials the service number).
Vice-versa, the working session may also end in advance (for example, because the working session lasted less than it was scheduled). In this case, the corresponding resources remain unused until the following working session is held (at its scheduled start).
Similar problems are experienced when any other unpredictable event affects the working sessions that are to be held (for example, because preceding working sessions are canceled).